Currently, thousands of information and interactive services are available to users over data networks such as the Internet. Large information service providers such as Prodigy, America Online and Compuserve provide their own information and interactive services and can provide a gateway access to the Internet and the thousands of small service providers around the world. Users may also access the Internet and the thousands of smaller information service providers (ISPs) directly through smaller user-local Internet access providers. Generally, the large information service providers bill their customers on a time-usage basis after a financial payment relationship has been established. Similarly, the smaller user-local Internet access providers usually also base their service charges to their subscribers for access to the Internet on a time-usage basis. The smaller ISPs currently either do not charge for access to their information and interactive services, or, if they do, also require the user to establish some sort of financial relationship. A frequent user to a particular established ISP may not be adverse to establishing a financial relationship for payment purposes. However, if a user accesses many different ISPs, each on only a casual basis, he is not likely to want or be able to establish a plethora of relationships with so many different providers. ISPs that do or would like to charge for access to their information and/or interactive services could do so by requiring the user to input their credit card number before data service is provided. A user may not, however, want to provide his credit card number to an ISP which is basically unknown to him and with whom he will probably have only the most fleeting interaction. Furthermore, it is well publicized that personal credit card information should not be transmitted over a public data network, which may be subject to unauthorized access.
An object of the present invention is to provide a payment mechanism for a user to access an ISP on the Internet which charges for information and/or services provided and which does not require either the establishment of a financial relationship between the user and the ISP, or the user to supply a credit card number over the Internet.